1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat-emitting treatment device for performing coagulation and incision of body tissue with heat, and particularly relates to a heat-emitting treatment-device having functions for detecting a state of connecting with a transmitting member for transmitting the heat of heat-generating elements to body tissue.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, electric treatment devices have come to be used as diagnostic and treatment devices in the field of medicine. Such electric treatment devices use heat-emitting elements for treatment such as incision, cauterizing, suturing, etc., of body tissue. The heat-emitting treatment devices transmit heat generated from a heat-emitting portion to the part of the body tissue to be treated, and perform coagulation or incision of body tissue with the transmitted heat.
The state of application of heat to the body tissue must be controlled in order to perform coagulation or incision thereby, and a technique wherein the heat-emitting electric power supplied to the heat-emitting portion is detected so as to control the amount of heat emitted from the heat-emitting portion is commonly used. However, the results of coagulation differ according to the size, thickness, etc., of the body tissue to be coagulated.
An electric power source for a heat-emitting treatment device has been proposed which controls subsequent supply of heat-emitting electric power according to the amount of heat-emitting electric power supplied until the temperature of the heat-emitting portion reaches a predetermined value, or the amount of time of the heat-emitting electric power being supplied, so as to enable suitable coagulation processing corresponding to the state of the body tissue (e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-269352).
Also, Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. 53-9031 discloses coagulation/incision forceps with a heat-emitting treatment device wherein multiple heater segments, which are heat-emitting elements, provided along the a thin ceramic incision edge portion, formed suitable for incision. Each of the multiple heater segments are formed electrically separated, so that the body tissue can be subjected to heat application treatment with the same temperature from the multiple heater segments.
With such known coagulation/incision forceps, the heat generated at the heater segments is transmitted to the body tissue by a metal blade directly in contact with the body tissue, and the heater segments and the metal blade are connected by soldering so that the emitted heat of the heater segments can be efficiently transmitted to the metal blade.